


A Comforting Light

by holysmotez



Series: Remake Deleted Scenes [3]
Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: And ships it, Angst, Barret's a nerd, Character Study, Deleted Scenes, F/M, Mild Language, Original minor character - Freeform, getting into Tifa's head this time, ish, like huge book nerd, rated T for some F-bombs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:22:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23970763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holysmotez/pseuds/holysmotez
Summary: The third fic in what is becoming a series of fics diving into some of the 'deleted' Cloti-inspired scenes of the FFVII Remake, based on tumblr prompts.  This is a short fic about Tifa during the events of Chapter 4: Mad Dash, featuring the when and how she comes across her knowledge about the flower Cloud gave her.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Series: Remake Deleted Scenes [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1732945
Comments: 18
Kudos: 140





	A Comforting Light

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to @silver-wield on tumblr for this prompt! I admit this prompt was really just about Tifa finding out about the flower, and it sort of got away from me as I started thinking some more about the recurring themes of the game. I am also really, really thrilled for the excuse to write Barret as the total planetology book nerd I believe he is.

Tifa sighs, snatching up a rag to start wiping down the bar, even though it may be a while longer before she’ll be able to lock up. Five minutes until closing time, and Cole remains fused to his stool, nursing on his fourth beer.

Cole’s a regular. More barnacle than barfly. If she didn’t cut him off on most nights, he’d spend his every last gil and waking moment saddled up at Seventh Heaven’s counter, sipping and wiping off his wiry beard with the back of his hand. 

On the good nights, he might curse under his breath, slam the gil for his tab on the counter, but otherwise leave without fuss.

On the bad nights, though, Cole dug in with the tenacity of a dog tick. Resisted any attempt, gentle or firm, to scrape him off his stool. _He was an honest, paying customer_ , was the usual prelude, followed by bellowing that after all the shit he’s shoveled in his lifetime, he _deserved_ to have as much as he wants, and _they weren’t no better than fucking Shinra_ trying to tell him what to do. That he’d take his business elsewhere, he’d badmouth Seventh Heaven to the whole fucking undercity, because _he knew some people ‘round here_ and _they had no idea who they were fucking with._

Tifa’s never sure who all makes up the _they_ he’s referring to. He doesn’t give the impression that he’s totally sure, either. 

Despite his unpredictable tantrums, she had long since filed Cole under ‘harmless’. Even while on his half-drunk tirade, he never raised a fist or got violent. He was at least wise enough to know better, and that it was only by Tifa’s good, albeit threadbare graces that he was allowed to set foot back inside.

Because like clockwork, customers like Cole would always come back. Plop right down and order another beer as if nothing ever happened. Usually the next day, sometimes the next week if they knew Barret was around. 

Cole had made the mistake once - and only once - of being within earshot of Barret while popping off on Tifa for her _fucking bullshit customer service_ , and in the span of a thunder spell, poor Cole found himself on his ass at the bottom of Seventh Heaven’s doorsteps. Might have also found himself shot him to pieces had Tifa not intervened.

 _Look, I appreciate your feelings and you sticking up for me, but you_ cannot _shoot a customer in the middle of the street outside my bar, Barret._

 _Scum like that don’t deserve to be your customer. Don’t even deserve to share the stank air we all breathe. You shoulda let me make an example of him, Tifa. Everyone in the whole damn undercity oughta know to_ never _disrespect you. Not on my watch. And especially not in front of my daughter!_

_I’ve handled him before. I can handle his type. And if Marlene’s going to grow up here, then it’ll be good for her if she sees how to diffuse a situation without making things worse for everybody in the long run. Besides, you can’t shoot all the Coles in the world._

_An’ why not?_

_Because then you’d be shooting most of my clientele in that case, and you know as well as I do that we can’t afford that._

Barret had grumbled his acquiescence to her point. They were hurting for cash lately, and she’d burn the bar down herself before ingratiating herself to one of Don Corneo’s loan sharks. Belts were tight, especially with bomb-making materials so expensive to get a hold of.

And ex-SOLDIER mercenaries, apparently, whose services also commanded a tidy fee. She sighs, wetting the kitchen rag again in the sink.

So for tonight, she lets the barnacle stay perched right where he is. Maybe she just didn’t have the heart to fight with him anymore. So many people in this town were just like him, trapped and caught up in their own miserable cycles, simultaneously not their fault and self-perpetuated. People whose youth and good health had been used up, burnt out, and tossed away by Shinra like trash, and they didn’t know how to cope. Like mako, like the Planet. 

And if the constancy of Seventh’s Heaven’s open doors provided the one and only comforting light among all that dark misery out there, even to the Coles of the world, then so be it. She’d find a way to forgive, and allow them back in.

She winces when her head starts to throb. Lately it’s as if all of her thoughts were compressing together, the gravity too much for her one skull to contain. She refocuses her attention on wiping down the bar counter, running the rag over it for the third, tenth, or maybe 100th time. Where _was_ Cloud, anyway? She had checked in on him after the sunlamps had dimmed to make sure he was still holding up okay after the long day they had. Dealing with a new Shinra-bred hound certainly wasn’t the usual clean up job for the town watch. 

Had she pushed him too hard, especially right after such a big and dangerous job? He didn’t seem like he minded the excitement, maybe even appreciated it, but who could tell with Cloud? Especially since…

She blinks, realizing she had stopped wiping in favor of leaning against the damp wood, her mind swept away again by her runaway thoughts. She shakes her head in a rather vain attempt to clear it, runs the rag over the counter again.

She had checked in on him, but he wasn’t in his room. He had disappeared. Again. A fact that sends her pulse racing just like it did when she stood at the threshold of his empty room. 

He could have just taken a walk, right? The apartments were pretty small and the walls thin, even by undercity standards. It was hard not to feel restless and cooped up before long— not that she’d ever admit that to Marle, especially when rent was gratis.

Yeah, right. Cloud wasn’t going to just _leave_. Not so soon. Not out of the blue. Not without telling her at least. Right?

She starts up wiping again, round and round, round and round, even though the stains are gone. 

The clang of gil hitting the counter startles her out of her skin. She’s about to chew Cole out for it, customer service be damned, only to have her words die in her throat when she finds him already on his feet and slipping on his jacket. The fact that he was paying before close _and_ getting up from his barstool to leave without being prompted might have shocked her even more than the sudden noise.

“Finally. Been tryin’ to get your attention for five goddamned minutes, missy,” Cole says.

“Oh, well,” she starts, clearing her throat. “That amount should cover it.” She doesn’t check, and doesn’t really care right then if it did. 

“No shit.”

“Thank you for your business. Have a nice night.” The line comes out so robotically, even for her being in customer service mode, that she barely recognizes the voice as her own.

Cole huffs, leaning forward over the counter, his whiskered cheeks flushed with amusement and intoxication. Says, “Hey, missy. May not be any my business, but seems you got a lot more on your mind lately. Reckon ever since that mean-lookin’ merc’s been darkenin’ your door. New boyfriend?”

She reels, telling herself it’s because of the stale beer on his breath. “Uh-“

“Figures it’d be some ex-military asshole. Sleepin’ with the enemy, I getcha. S’pose you do got a talent for charmin’ the fuck-ups.”

“Okay?” Tifa couldn’t figure out his angle, and she really didn’t care to. Nonetheless, her heart was thudding, her fist clenching. She fought the urge to punch him through the nearest wall. What was going on? Cole _never_ got under her skin like this before. She sure as shit wasn’t about to let him see that, ever, so she cooly reminds him, “Thank you, but we’re closed now. Get yourself home safely, okay?”

Her voice comes out saccharine sweet and steady as intended, thank god. His lush smile sours instantly. “Shit, tell you what. You oughta know I ain’t never seen so many sad, miserable basketcases all under one roof. Not even at Drunkards. You have yourself a good evenin’ now.”

And then he turns on his heel and just... _leaves._

Beyond elated that awkward conversation was over, she practically rushes to slam the barroom door to lock it up behind him. She turns around and leans back against it, nerves singing with relief. Suppose she’ll have to chalk this one up as another bad night.

Her gaze floats over to what has become her favorite corner of the bar. There, her eyes settle on the brightest thing in here these days, save for whenever Marlene’s smile was lighting up the room. 

The flower. _Her_ flower. 

She still can’t get over it. A real, living flower, it’s cloying perfume seeming to cleanse the dirty slum air around it. That she even found a good-sized container to put it in was another minor miracle. Ever since she placed it there behind the bar, it’s vibrancy hasn’t yet failed to ease her clouded mind.

Her heart does this wonderful, terrifying thing every time she looks at it, too. What was he thinking, giving her something like that so casually? What did he even mean by it?

It has to mean something, doesn’t it? 

Enough was enough. Unable to stand living with the mystery a moment longer, and forgetting about all the rest of her cleanup, she beelines straight to the pinball machine, hits the special switch underneath, and waits for its mechanisms to whirl and jingle. The floor sinks her down into the hideout. 

The lift rumbles to a stop at the bottom where she finds Barret, sprawled and lightly snoring in the shabby recliner he had managed to squeeze into their tiny basement. Marlene dozes, too, in a small cot by his feet. Good. If the elevator noise didn’t wake them, then with any luck, she’ll be able to find what she’s looking for without disturbing either of them.

In the opposite corner from the recliner, however, she confronts the first major kink in her plan. She faces down a daunting, disorganized pile of books, flooding out across the already meager floor space of their hideout. Barret boasts it to be the largest private collection of planetology books in the undercity, but he sure as hell doesn’t treat it like one.

It is, admittedly, a treasure trove of deep, specialized knowledge. Barret often reminds her to read more, saying she might be surprised at what knowledge will come in handy. She concedes that maybe he had a point when her gut sinks and she realizes she has little clue of what the hell she’s even looking for. 

Maybe it wasn’t just _any_ luck she needed. More like just _a lot_ of it. 

She tiptoes over, kneels down, and quietly begins sifting through the pile. She only gets a few tomes pushed to the side before she hears Barret rumble out, “Tifa. What you up to over there?”

“I’m, well….I’m looking for something,” she mutters back, keeping her voice low for Marlene’s sake.

“Well, _duh._ What for?”

Tifa huffs, scanning a book cover before casting it aside. “I’ll know it when I see it. I’ll just be a sec.”

“Uh-huh. Sure you will,” Barret says, leaning back in his chair, hands tucking back behind his head. He shuts his eyes, and pretends to go back to sleep as if she didn’t notice the wry smirk lingering on his lip.

After a minute of frustrated searching, casting aside one stuffy, academic text after another on general cosmology, geology, and every other -ology, Tifa feels herself boiling over. She hisses out, “You seriously had to just throw it all into a pile like this? How do you even keep track of what’s in here?”

Barret keeps his eyes closed, but his smirk grows bigger. He taps a finger to his temple. “Catalogue’s all up here. I can find anything that’s in that pile. Question is, are you strong enough to admit your defeat and ask for help?”

Strong _enough?_ Tifa curses under her breath. She takes a moment to center herself, find her balance. Just like Master Zangan taught her. One, two. One. Two. On her next breath, she mumbles out a word. 

“Botany.”

“What was that?” Barret asks. “Gotta speak up.”

“Botany,” she repeats. “I’m looking for books on plants.”

Barret rises to sit up. “Really? I didn’t know you were much interested in plants.”

“I’m not. Not usually.”

Barret, then, falls weirdly silent for a long moment. “It’s about what spikey-boy gave you, ain’t it?” 

Tifa whips around to him, all bug-eyed and before she can think. Kicks herself when a conspiratorial, wry grin starts to spread across on Barret’s face. 

“Uh,” Tifa says dumbly, feeling like an open book herself.

Barret launches up from his chair and says, “Don’t you worry, girl, I got you. I heard about what y’all got up to today, and he didn’t charge you a gil extra, did he? The fact that that spikey-haired idiot treats you right is about the only redeeming thing I can say about him. Poor, poor Jessie.”

Tifa’s brow furrows. “What about Jessie?”

“Nevermind that.” He nudges her aside and stoops over the mess of books. “Here, I think I know just the one you’re lookin’ for.”

Barret digs, grunting and grumbling, book spines crackling as he tosses one after another over his shoulder and sweeping some under his legs. Finally, after picking up a book and squinting at its spine, he says, “Ah-hah. Here’s the one. _Plant Symbolism, Uses, and Folklore of Gaia._ I’m rather proud of this one. It’s pretty rare. Took it as payment from one of my old Avalanche contacts from across the sea.”

“Wow. Thanks,” Tifa says, struck with amazement by the luck and for Barret’s resourcefulness as he places it in her arms. “I’ll bring it back soon in one piece, I promise.”

“It’s alright. You can keep it as long as you want. You can earn it by punching seven flavors of shit outta some Shinra later on.”

Tifa huffs, this time, with a smile of her own as she clutches the book to her chest.

She cleans up the bar quickly and hurries with the book back to her apartment. The urge to crack it open the second she steps inside is overwhelming, but she nonetheless freezes just inside her open doorway, listening out for any movement in the neighboring apartment. 

Hearing nothing, she puts the book down on her desk and goes back outside. The shadowed door of apartment 202 looms ahead of her. Knuckles raised, she hesitates. She doesn’t know why, nor why her heart seems to be beating out another mile for every second she stood there. After a hard exhale, she knocks. 

No answer. She puts her ear to the door. 

“Cloud? Are you back yet?” she asks, punctuating her query with another knock.

No answer.

“Guess not,” she sighs, trying not to feel sick. 

Back in her room, she sits on her bed, the book closed on her lap. The spine creaks when she opens it, starting with a look through the book glossary, and having no earthly idea where the flower is native to, let alone its scientific classification. She only has the flower’s shape and color to go on, so she starts thumbing through the book page by page instead. Hundreds lay ahead of her. The first thing she learned from this book was that there existed this many different types of plants in the world, apparently all with their own unique histories.

She pauses for each section on flowers in their corresponding region, glancing over the pictures for anything yellow that looks even vaguely like her flower. It’s unbearably slow going, and she starts to huff at every useless turn. Frustration begins to bubble up again when she flips over fruitless page after fruitless page, sighing into the dreadful silence of her apartment. Her eyes begin to glaze, exhaustion beginning to overpower her desperation to know. 

After passing yet another useless page of jargon, she tamps down an urge to slam the book shut and throw it down on the floor, not caring whether it would piss off her neighbor below. Just when she was about to give in to her impulse, her thumb turns over one last page, and a brilliant, familiar yellow-gold bursts up from the waxy paper.

Her breath catches. She bolts upright, fingers shaking as she touches them to the perfect picture of her flower. They skirt down the page where she dog ears it. When her eyes travel to the paragraph of its general description, a fascination like she’s never felt before grips at her heart.

_A classic, enduring symbol of reunion dating back to the time of the Ancients. Based on the archaeological data at the time of this writing, it is believed that the Ancients themselves gave these uniquely-scented flowers, usually to their lovers, after returning from a long journey. This flower and this tradition are also unique in that they have persisted largely unaltered to this very day. It is one of the few unbroken ties we share with our long-dead Ancient precursors, and thus it would be a phenomenal loss for the world if these flowers were to ever go extinct._

“Reunion. Of lovers?” she whispers to herself, finger at her lip. It wasn’t just her flower then, was it? 

According to this book, it was theirs. 

Did he know?

She’s pulled away from the page and her racing thoughts by the faint crunching of gravel underfoot outside the apartments. Her heart does it’s weird thing again when the same footfalls start to climb up the stairwell. She slams the book shut and shoves it under her bed when they come to stop just outside her door. 

Then, she thinks she hears a sigh, then someone mutter.

“She’s probably asleep…”

 _Cloud._ She hopes he didn’t hear the sudden release of her own stopped up breath. 

Apparently not, because his footsteps soon retreat from her door. She waits until his apartment door opens and shuts, and she hears the telltale scrape of his sword against the wall, even if he did try to be quiet. She waits until no other sounds drift out from his apartment, and she can’t stand to spend another second alone. 

There’s so much she’s unsure of. Lost thoughts and questions that twist and circle back around themselves. Like what happened before he ended up in Midgar? What changed his eyes? Why did they reunite like this after so many awful, lonely years? Would he stay long enough for her to find out?

Yet despite all her misgivings, all she can really think about is the flower. It’s an image that, for reasons she can’t explain, breaks apart the darkness of her thoughts, halts the spiral, and brings with it a gladness to her heart that she hasn’t felt in ages.

She’s just so... _glad_ that he came back. 

So she launches off her bed and out her door. The dark door of apartment 202 confronts her again, but without any hesitation, she knocks.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you all don't mind the made up character, even if he is a tool.


End file.
